In recent years, various vehicular systems and/or devices such as an automatic headlight control system, an automatic wiper control system and the like are controlled by an automatic control system. For example, the automatic headlight control system detects brightness around a vehicle by using a sensor, and turns on a headlight when degrees of the brightness fall under a predetermined value. The automatic wiper control system is, for another example, coupled with a rain sensor that detects wetting on a windshield for an automatic turn on/off operation upon detecting the wetting.
Yet another example of the automatic control system is an agent system. For example, Japanese Patent Document JP-A-2000-186942 discloses the agent system that is equipped with a display unit for displaying an agent represented by a messenger or an animal in a cartoon fashion. A user of the agent system, e.g., a driver of the vehicle or an occupant of the vehicle, is queried whether he/she desires a control of the vehicular system or the device when the user has a dialog with the agent system. The agent system controls the vehicular system when it determines, based on the dialog with the user, that the control of the vehicular system is desired by the user.
The agent system in the above disclosure asks the user, “Do you want to turn on the light ?” “Do you want to have a navigation to a restaurant ?” or similar kind of questions. When the proposal for controlling the vehicular system from the agent system is affirmatively confirmed by the user with a reply of a word such as “YES” or the like, the agent system automatically provides a control for the vehicular system such as the automatic headlight control system, a navigation system, or the like.
However, provision of the control based on a sensor signal from, for example, a light sensor or the like sometimes causes inconvenience and uncomfortableness to the user because of the discrepancy between the user's needs for the control and the content of the control based on the sensor signal. In this case, the agent system may have control provision standard that is stricter than a current one for providing the same control. That is, the light may be turned on when the degrees of brightness around the vehicle become lower than the current standard. However, the stricter control provision standard may also cause inconvenience, when user feels that the agent system fails to turn on the light at an appropriate degree of brightness/darkness.
On the other hand, the provision of the control always satisfies the user when the automatic control system determines the provision of the control based on the query for the user prior to the provision of the control. That is, the probability of a suitable control provision will be improved while unnecessary provision of the control is suppressed. However, the user may be embarrass by the query from the agent system when the user thinks that the provision of the control is rightful without question. That is, the user may regard the query is unnecessary and annoying.